


Ironing Out

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Autistic Dave Strider, Autistic Karkat Vantas, Gen, M/M, Trans Dave Strider, Trauma, two stupid kids working out issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24766192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dave and Karkat talk about things they’d much rather avoid.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

Dave was pulled into his Switch, trying to incorporate references to SBAHJ into another Mario Kart Maker level for Karkat to try, play, fail, and inevitably pass after the first few 15 attempts. He’s never been too good with anything having to do with using his hands, poor motor skills being a part of the critically acclaimed, ‘Freak of Nature,’ package.

They were both lying in bed, this night turning one of what was turning into the quad-weekly sleepovers. Dave had alchemized what Karkat liked to call, ‘ .’ Karkat peeked over from his book to take a look at his friend-

(Friend? Friend.)

-hoping to catch his attention by looking at him alone. After 30 seconds passed, you’d figure that Dave’d notice a bright red burning gaze in the side of his head, but of course he didn’t, and so Karkat coughed softly, earning him a raised eyebrow and hum of acknowledgement from Dave, who still was focused on Mario Maker.

Karkat shifted to sit on the bed, folding his legs to rest underneath them and inadvertently stiffened his posture. The troll always been upfront with his intentions, earnest almost to a naive fault, making it a wonder how he survived as long as he did on that hell planet that was Alternia. Considering his inability to conform, pertaining specifically to wearing that sign of the suffer, an outlawed figure mind you, in broad fucking daylight, in a notoriously hemo anonymous color.

“Can we. Can I try something,”he mumbled, face flushing a bit. This was stupid, he was stupid.

A solid sixty-seconds passed on before Dave spoke up from his belly down position on the California king bed, shifting from from his position suddenly to lay his head on Karkat’s thigh, and triggered a split second freak out in the troll that didn’t go unnoticed by Dave. He knew that wide eyed look from Karkat just as well as Dave knew that Karkat would deny that the aforementioned wide eyed look was one of the few indicators that, ‘Holy shit. This is making the dude feel an emotion that most definitely was not positive.’ He sat up for real this time, a bit less casually. Dave knew that Karkat wasn’t going to admit that he was uncomfortable, and he knew that he wasn’t going to want to talk about why he obviously was uncomfortable, that was a conversation for another time.

He rubbed his elbow awkwardly, he fucked up, definitely, maybe he was overthinking it, but he didn’t want to shirk off any signs like that. He didn’t want to turn into that type of person.

The taller of the two now now sitting up properly across from Karkat, opened his mouth to speak.

Although, it wasn’t his voice that spoke,

“-You didn’t have to move, you know.” Not this game again. Dave had to tip toe around Karkat when he was like….this.

“I wanted to move dude.” Childishly, Karkat crossed his arms and pouted, face not looking any less red than it had when he asked the initial question.  
“No you didn’t, Dave, you can, like- You can lay back there is you really fucking want and stop being such a goddamn-”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re projecting on me right now but can we just skip over it already and pretend like I didn’t lay my head on your thigh very fucking teenage repressed homo like, you weren’t slightly weirded out by it, and we didn’t have this weird unnecessarily passive aggressive mini conversation about it?”

Karkat huffed, “I wasn’t fucking weirded out about it-“

“Exactly, you weren’t weirded out. Maybe I just decided I wanted to get up because I could smell your stanky troll coochie all the way from outside your pants? What about that huh? Not everything about you Karkat don’t be so anal maybe I just have a really sensitive nose,” he joked, effectively stopping Karkat from feeling like he had to defend whatever emotional front he feels he needs to put on in front of Dave and defusing the situation all in one swoop. They’re… working on it. “What were you going to ask me anyway?”

“Never fucking mind Dave, you ruined the moment. You were so incessant on being an overly emotionally analytic asshole that you ruined it! I spent so much time thinking about this stupid fucking question and here you are, strolling in like you know everything about everyone without even asking them?” Karkat snapped, before he was promptly cut off with the touch of Dave’s hand against his own, with such a gentle caution, as if he’d break on contact.

(And he probably would, with this sort touch that he was was neither accustomed to, nor experienced often enough to curate a proper reaction to.)

“Can you just, take a deep breath and calm the fuck down for one minute, yeah?”Karkat, the taller of the two paused in his tracks, eyes widening and checks slowly dusting with the slightest hint of red, almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye, but luckily enough, Dave was not that. Behind his shades, whenever he was around, he was always watching, looking at the subtle moves in Karkat’s face, his reactions, how he tries to muddle and mask the very few emotions he manages not towear on his sleeve.

“Now, what did you want to try?” The troll paused, because when given the opportunity to think, breathe, even if just for a minute, he became infinitely more mature. He took a stuttered breath through his parted lips.


	2. Do you think? Or do you know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave and Karkat FINALLY communicate about something, even if it was obvious to everyone but them.

“I wanted to try being, just like...” Karkat’s words drifted into ahushed tone. Dave raised his eyebrows, barely visible over his glasses, nonverbally urging Karkat to continue on.

“I wanted to try talking about some shit I guess- and before you say anything, I’m entirely aware how odd of a fucking thing that is to ask, considering that I run my mouth 24/7 without mutual consent, but this kind of talking actually has to be, uh,-“

“A two sided convo?"  
“Yeah!” he yips a little too loudly for the close proximity that Dave is in, “Yeah,” he repeats, just a bit softer. Dave has a small, almost indistinguishable smile, seen more in his softening of demeanor than with his actual mouth, he smiles with his body, his posture, and his behavior. Dave doesn’t recognize it at all but Karkat understands it, and that’s all that matters right now.

“Alrighty I’m down for some bastardized and probably culturally appropriated interspecies feelings jam,” he replies, shifting to get comfortable now that the conversation has taken a less borderline argumentative turn. Dave, for the most part, has no issue with verbal aggression, for lack of better phrasing. With his Bro, if there was tension or even anger hidden behind his shade cladded face, it would always go unsaid, Dave had to be on edge all the time, always guessing every mood.

It wasn’t like that with Karkat. With Karkat’s aggression, if it can even be called ‘aggression,’ its oddly comforting. Admittedly, the grey bundle of nerves was emotionally constipated, but always predictable, as backwards as it does sound, his outbursts were an insanely narcotic familiarity for Dave.

The troll gives his hands a playful squeeze, “Feelings jams are for moirails dumbass.”

For two, quite literally, autistic kids, they sure do have a lot of nonverbal conversation.

“Well I know THAT much.”

Karkat smirks to himself, “Do you really?”

“Yeah dude. Are we not- kind of like morails?”

The statement wasn’t… entirely inaccurate. This was one of very few things that Dave had no idea of how much of a touchy subject it was for Karkat. It wasn’t as if he was wrong, they did many of the classic things that moirails were... ‘supposed’ to do. It’s just that he has his own complexes with the quadrant system and how inherently it was made to exclude mutants- er, ‘trolls like him’, and finally being given to the chance to even see quadrants as a viable option for himself instead of being forced to watch from afar from an obsessive perspective, was a learning curve for him, all of which he elegantly articulated when he spoke again:

“How would you like it if I called you my ‘kind of’ my boyfriend, dipshit?”

“That’s literally the most far out comparison you could draw, it’s more like a best friend thing-"  
“ _Dave Strider, a_ re you trying to mansplain my OWN cultural practices to me?” He asked, smirking mischievously all the while. Dave returned his own playful eyeroll. Karkat always found the fact that he still made facial expressions while wearing shades cute, and he’d told him this twice before, in not so many words.

“Depends, does it count as mansplaining if we’re both dudes?”

“I’m not the one who introduced me to the term, how the fuck am I supposed to know?” He questioned, incredulously.

“Oh my god. Karks, just spit out what you wanted to talk about before we both forget and delve into a never ending loop of politically policing each other.”

“Fine, fine,” Karkat paused and tugged a nearby pillow behind his lower back, sitting on a bed is hard word the spine of someone who refused to slouch. “I guess its tangental related to the whole sort of, weird Moirail thing I guess. I know you said not to worry about labels and shit but I,“ Dave nodded him on, “I have weird feelings. Like we act a like lot moirails I guess.”

“Oh.” Dave thought for a second, “But don’t you like, see that as romantic? Or romance? Or something, I don’t know it just seems like earlier you were saying that moirails equals boyfriends? But I know that can’t be totally right because boyfriends like, uh, do,” Dave makes some vaguely obscene gesture, “Stuff. -Like that of which I’m pretty sure the two of us have not done unless we’ve been like secret lovers and I’ve been unwittingly engaging in some weird non-sexual troll Moirail sex? Which in that case I think we need to have a serious talk about multicultural consent Karkat.” By the end of his maundering he _finally_ notices that there’s an uncomfortable silence in the room and more notably, Karkat’s ears are on fucking fire.

“Uh. Sorry, I didn’t really get the chance to let you actually say what you were gonna,” Karkat furrowed his brows at him, and Dave continued on, “I mean at this point, nothing you say next can be more mortifying that whatever the fuck that was.”

Karkat exhaled forcefully, “Wanna bet?”

Dave playfully nudged Karkat’s arm “Try me, dude.” Whether it was conscious or not, some part of Dave clearly know that the best way to communicate (or at least attempt to) with Karkat was through a route encouraging of defiance, and he wasn’t wrong.

“You know what? Fine. Literally what else have I got to lose that I haven’t fucking already.” The cancer afforded himself a moment’s pause, “I like you Dave.”

“Like me like. Uh. ‘Troll best friend’ like me or ‘Troll boyfriend’ like me because-“

“I don’t fucking know! It’s more nuanced than that you have to understand it’s. I guess the issue is that you _don’t_ understand. Trolls get it and can keep their feelings easily confined to little boxes but, you’re different, and being around you makes me feel different about quadrants and I feel like I’ve caught your weird fucking disease where you bleed every type of affection possible into one person who can’t understand Quadra boundaries!” Karkat, exasperated, took a breath,

“What I’m _trying_ to say here Dave, is, I like you in a way that by human standards, wouldn’t be exclusively platonic, I suppose,” he mumbles the last few words, searching Dave’s face for a reaction, a tell, anything at all, and for the split moment that Dave processed the information presented to him, a tirade of thoughts ran through the Karkat’s head. He knew he was playing himself when he thought that anyone had any possibility of liking him back, he was merely a tolerated presence in Dave’s eyes, and the only reason he hand’t been thrown out with the rest of the trash is because the humans of the group caught on too little too late about how he should have been treated from the get go. Definitely time to backtrack.

“Dave, listen, I’m-“ Quick to silence whatever depreciate phrase was going to come out of the boy’s mouth next, he interrupted,

“Shut, up for a second, okay? I think, that I like you too?” The both of them paused, and Karkat shook his head, 

"You think, Dave? Do you think? or do you know?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the next few chapters planned out and I'm super excited for them!

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a one-shot, I usually am too shy to post my stuff anywhere but I had this one sitting here long enough :] i may post the rest eventually!


End file.
